Trage wegen en een verzonken bunker

Met een geknelde kaak en dof geloei haalt hij adem

Zuurstof geraakt in zijn halve long slechts langs trage wegen

Hij piept, hij rochelt, zijn uitleg stottert eerst en stokt

Gas, boys, gas!

Maar de pillen werken al en lang huivert hij niet bij zijn reutel

Zachtjes verdwijnt hij weer in zijn verzonken bunker

Een knoestige hoeksteen nog net boven het gras van weinig haar

Zacht ontwaakt zijn eigen zon nog eens

In het prille ochtendlicht werken de mieren, de soldaten

En verzinkt de kolonie onder het gewicht van mosterdgas

Gebundeld in een betonnen koker, de gezonken bunker

Was het hiervoor dat we uit klei werden gemaakt?

Geen linies meer, slechts hospitaalpijama’s en voorschriften

Vergeten de dagorders en de marsliederen, het haar karig maar wuft

De hoop half gezaaid thuis en Franse bloemvelden bloeien, wijnranken

nav Gedichtendag 2014

Calendar of selected Centenary events - updated 21.05.14

Below you can find an overview of selected 2014 events. These concern cultural impressions, language/literature themes, civilian histories mainly. Obviously, the war itself is always very much present. If you have events to add that follow the spirit of what is below, please send us an email. We will update the calendar and subsequently tweet about it to our followers @belgianrefugees.

May

• 20: In Antwerp, in the fabulous MAS museum, an exhibition opens on the 1.5 million Belgians who sought refuge abroad in the autumn weeks of 1914. The exhibition runs until April 2015. The exhibition will be more of an evocation using pictures mainly than a proper exhibition.
• 22: An exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow will showcase the lives of the Belgian refugees in England through a series of rare paintings and illustrations, some of which are by Frank Brangwyn. http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/11024843.Exhibition_to_feature_WW1_Belgian_refugees/

June

• 18 – 20: Languages and the First World War, a joint conference of the University of Antwerp and the British Library. Wednesday 18 in Antwerp, Friday 20 in London. http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/socialscience/2013/07/wwi.html
• 27: In Antwerp, the FotoMuseum hosts an exhibition about the First World War, the first mediatised conflict and how that still reflects on the current war media. The exhibition runs until 11 November 2014. www.antwerpen14-18.be/programma-2014/
• 28: Conference at the National Archives in Kew, Richmond (UK): Diplomacy, espionage and the First World War, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/events/first-world-war-conference.htm

August

• 2,3: Events marking the Centenary in Liège include a son-et-lumière show which will be open to the public on August 2nd and 3rd 2014.
• 4: More than fifty heads of state will be invited to a ceremony in the Belgian city of Liège on August 4th 2014, at the start of a series of events in Belgium marking the Centenary of the First World War.
• 4: The United Kingdom’s entry into the war in response to the violation of Belgian neutrality. The British government has decided to commemorate this event on 4 August 2014 with ceremonies in the UK and in Mons (late afternoon), at the site where the first British soldier fell.
• 21: Libby Horner talks about Frank Brangwyn’s work during the First World War, looking for example at his Westminster Palace scheme as well as his posters. William Morris Gallery and Vestry House Museum. http://www.wmgallery.org.uk/

September

• 1: In Antwerp, the Eugeen Van Mieghem Museum highlights artistic impressions of the Great War. The exhibition ends on 30 November 2014. www.antwerpen14-18.be/programma-2014/
• 2: Responses to Belgian refugees in Britain during the First World War: a Symposium. University of Stirling.  
• 3: Preston Remembers celebrates the arrival of the first Belgian refugees (4 September 1914). Paper Christophe Declercq on Belgian refugees at 2pm.
• 9: The strange case of the image of Belgium by the Belgians in Britain, seminar at Oxford Brookes University ‘’Alternate Spaces of the Great War: Voices’.
• 14: De Groote Oorlog in ons hoofd, filosofieproject (Brussels): Monika Van Paemel over Paul Van Ostaijen, Emile Verhaeren en Stefan Zweig. www.deburen.eu/nl/programma/categorie/lezingen
• 17: Leicester and World War I, 1.30pm – 4.30pm at Belgrave Hall & Gardens. A talk looking at Leicester during the Great War exploring a range of themes including Belgian refugees, conscientious objectors and war work in the Belgrave area. Free. To book call 0116 251 9740 or email amiles@wea.org.uk. More information on http://www.visitleicester.info/things-to-see-and-do/first-world-war/.  
• 20: In Antwerp, the Museum of Fine Arts collaborates with the Letterenhuis and hosts an exhibition which offers an overview and insight into how the modernists artists, especially authors such as Emile Verhaeren, experienced the Great War. The exhibition, Jezusstraat 28, runs until 11 January 2015. www.antwerpen14-18.be/programma-2014/
• 28: Antwerp had been a hub for migration to the United States for decades when the First World War suddenly ended all that. An exhibition in the Red Star Line Museum aims to offer a further insight into how people related to their migrant families, from whom they were cut off because of the war. The exhibition runs until 6 April 2015. www.antwerpen14-18.be/programma-2014/

October

• 2: The Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp hosts Panamarenko Universum, an exhibition which offers an overview of the work of Panamarenko, including a daring Zeppelin flight. www.antwerpen14-18.be/programma-2014/
• 3,4,5: The city of Antwerp commemorates the fact that 100 years ago the temporary pontoon bridge across the river Scheldt provided a lifeline for British support troops entering the city and relieving Belgian and British troops in the immediate environment and for Belgian civilians escaping the besieged city. www.antwerpen14-18.be/programma-2014/
• 15: De Groote Oorlog in ons hoofd, filosofieproject (Brussels): Matthijs de Ridder over Henri Barbusse, Käthe Kollwitz, Frans Masereel en Yvan Goll. www.deburen.eu/nl/programma/categorie/lezingen

Jeremy Paxman's Great Britain’s Great War and its Belgian refugees

In his 'Great Britain’s Great War', Jeremy Paxman - the man of peace - discussed “the state of the embattled nation, its press, its political, industrial and social life, its assumptions and priorities" (TheSpectator, 2 November 2013). Paxman also devoted quite some attention to Belgian refugees. 

Although most of the various pages related to atrocity stories, how they contributed to the war effort to lure the United States into the conflict (Remember Belgium posters) and to how the Bryce report was produced, the following section clearly was meant to cover the entire history of the Belgians in Britain.

"An estimated million Belgians had fled their country after the German invasion at the beginning of August 1914, about 100,000 of them to Britain. This was such an influx that at one point the Home Secretary thought he would have to build great camps to accommodate them, probably in the south of Ireland. In the short term, public buildings like Earls Court, Alexandra Palace and the Aldwych skating rink in London were turned into temporary refuges. Later, there was even an entire Belgian town for refugee munitions workers near Gateshead, named after the Queen of the Belgians - 'Elisabethville' - and patrolled by Belgian police. But most of the Belgian refugees were billeted in British towns and villages, where they were not necessarily very popular.”

However, more than a million of Belgians fled to The Netherlands alone. In total more than 1.5 million Belgians sought refuge in The Netherlands, France and Britain altogether. Admittedly many of that one million in The Netherlands soon returned or went on to stay in Britain or France. At the end of July 1917 a census was held among the Belgians in Britain and 172,298 were counted. 

Due to various reasons, trying to specify the overall number of Belgians that had been in Britain is mere guess work and estimations differ from 210,000 to 265,000. How long did one have to in Britain to be considered a Belgian refugee? Was a Belgian soldier convalescing in Britain for a longer period and employed in the meantime a Belgian in Britain too? And let’s not go into the difficulty of Belgian surnames, especially when they had been noted down by several people in a few years only. 

Anyway, not only is Paxman’s figure of 100,000 inaccurate, it is not even a close estimate, in the major difference between his figure and the effective number lies parts of the history of the Belgians in Britain.

Listing Earls Court and Alexandra Palace in parallel does not do credit to what was the real situation either. Many more temporary refuges had been established and Ally Pally soon became a camp for German POW’s. Earls Court had its own Belgian police force as well. As Paxman refers to Ice Rinks and Belgian villages as well, it might very well have included the site of the Pelabon factory, a Belgian munition factory in Richmond. The main factory hall later on became the Richmond Ice Rink.

A final note concerns the perception of reception. Although the relations between host society and guests of the nation varied widely, a more frequently used phrase to refer to Belgians in Britain during the First World War is that of ‘spoiled pets’, which most certainly also includes the initial wave of empathy that welcomed thousands of Belgians. Everyone wanted one in the house. And no one thought the conflict would last so long.

Paxman’s inclusion of an insular quote about these ‘Bloody Belgians’ is funny as well as not entirely accurate.

“Most people agree they are fat, lazy, greedy, amiable and inclined to take all the benefits heaped on them as a matter of course,' commented a vicar's daughter near Stroud, in Gloucestershire. But the fleeing Belgians had brought with them all manner of horror stories which bolstered Britain's moral cause to such an extent that some society ladies seem to have decided that a small collection of Belgian refugees was a positive adornment. 'How are your Belgian atrocities?' they asked one another.”

For a more intricate analysis of how the British host society welcomed and accommodated the Belgians during the Great War, as written by a British author, please see inter alia

Katherine Storr's marvellous "Excluded fromthe Record: Women, Refugees, and Relief, 1914-1929" (Peter Lang, 2009). It has close to 100 references to Belgian refugees.

Catriona Pennell's "A Kingdom United:Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First World War in Britain andIreland" (OUP, 2012). It has over 30 references.